Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Josie Gonzales has thrown down a challenge for the board to reform itself, noting that supervisors must lead by example.

(The cynical among us might say that some supervisors’ leading by example in the recent past is exactly why the county is buried in a morass of broken ethics, but let’s not go there.)

It’s not just the “image” of county government that needs to change, as Gonzales said, or the “tone” of her reform talk that so irritated Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt. It’s the culture of San Bernardino County government.

We welcome the call by Gonzales, who has been chairwoman for just four months, to set rules for supervisors and their staff members that could help keep them from going astray.

She proposed at Tuesday’s board meeting that the supervisors require uniform employment contracts and work performance evaluations for board staff members; prohibit the use of discretionary funds for ongoing personnel costs as the 2009-10 Grand Jury recommended; prohibit using discretionary funds “for purposes that yield personal recognition” (think the Paul A. Biane Library in Rancho Cucamonga), and prohibit supervisors’ staff members from getting paid to work for a county elected official’s campaign or political action committee.

Those are all reasonable responses to elements of the Assessor’s Office and Colonies settlement scandals that have engulfed the county in the past few years. They’re a good start, but not enough by a long shot.

How about a strict prohibition against supervisors or their staff members accepting any kind of gift over 50 bucks or so?

More importantly, how about restrictions on campaign contributions?

As the Board of Supervisors is talking about reforms to clean up the top layers of county government, the city of Upland is working on limiting campaign contributions.

Actually, campaign contributions were not the root cause of the alleged misdeeds by Upland’s ex-mayor, John Pomierski. The federal indictment against him claims that he extorted bribes from businesses in the city.

It is true, however, that Pomierski was swept into office with a huge campaign chest – dwarfing anything that had been seen in previous Upland elections – and his generous campaign receipts allowed him to far outspend current Mayor Ray Musser when Musser ran unsuccessfully against Pomierski for mayor in 2004 and 2008. So it’s understandable that Musser and others on the council would think that big campaign donations sent Upland down the sorry road it’s been on under the ex-mayor.

The county’s Colonies scandal, on the other hand, hinges completely on big campaign donations. After the county paid Colonies Partners a $102 million settlement to end a legal battle over flood-control rights, Colonies co-managing partner Jeff Burum directed $100,000 each into four PACs allegedly run by then-Supervisors Bill Postmus and Paul Biane, Mark Kirk, who was then Supervisor Gary Ovitt’s chief of staff, and Jim Erwin. Postmus has pleaded guilty to taking a bribe for his vote in favor of the settlement and Burum, Biane, Erwin and Kirk stand accused of a bribery conspiracy.

Prosecutors say the $100,000 payments were bribes, payoffs for the favorable vote. Burum denies it, saying they were perfectly legal campaign contributions meant to smooth over Colonies’ rocky relationship with the Board of Supervisors after the lengthy legal battle.

Even if Burum’s defense prevails, that “smoothing over” money represents way too much political influence for our taste.

The Safety Employees Benefit Association, the union that Erwin ran for most of the time the Colonies lawsuits against the county were active, received $550,000 from Colonies Partners from 2004 to 2008. SEBA, in turn, gave nearly $660,000 to the three supervisors who voted for the Colonies settlement and to two candidates who ran against the two supervisors who voted against it.

SEBA contributed $400,000 to Neil Derry’s successful campaign to unseat Supervisor Dennis Hansberger, an outspoken critic of the Colonies settlement. And then Derry hired Erwin, the former SEBA chief, as his first chief of staff.

Illegal or not, it all stinks. And campaign contributions are at the bottom of it, buying all sorts of questionable favors.

Join the Conversation

We invite you to use our commenting platform to engage in insightful conversations about issues in our community. Although we do not pre-screen comments, we reserve the right at all times to remove any information or materials that are unlawful, threatening, abusive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, pornographic, profane, indecent or otherwise objectionable to us, and to disclose any information necessary to satisfy the law, regulation, or government request. We might permanently block any user who abuses these conditions.

If you see comments that you find offensive, please use the “Flag as Inappropriate” feature by hovering over the right side of the post, and pulling down on the arrow that appears. Or, contact our editors by emailing moderator@scng.com.